http://news.oneindia.in/2010/04/15/exxonvaldez-spill-still-affecting-alaskan-wildlife.html

Thursday, April 15, 2010,11:41 [IST]
 
Washington, April 15 (ANI): Lingering oil from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill is still being ingested by wildlife more than two decades after the disaster, scientists in Alaska have found.
The research uses biomarkers to reveal long-term exposure to oil in harlequin ducks and demonstrates how the consequences of oil spills are measured in decades rather than years.

The Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground on the Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, spilling 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into the sea, covering 1,300 square miles. It is still regarded as one of the most devastating human-caused contamination events, and the effects on wildlife populations and communities have been debated by biologists, ecologists, and the oil industry ever since.

Now, using the biomarker CYP1A, which is induced upon exposure to crude oil, an international team led by Daniel Esler, from the Centre for Wildlife Ecology
, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, has measured prolonged exposure to oil in local wildlife populations.

“One of the more remarkable and unanticipated findings of recent research is the length of time over which animals were exposed to residual oil. Our research has shown that oil remaining in the area, particularly in inter-tidal areas, was encountered and ingested by some near-shore animals,” said Esler.

The team focused their research on harlequin ducks as an example of such a species. Harlequins are marine birds that live in inter-tidal and shallow sub-tidal areas. Between 1990 and 2005 there were approximately 14,500 ducks in the Prince William Sound area.

“In addition to the higher likelihood of exposure due to their habitat, harlequin ducks have a number of characteristics that makes them particularly sensitive to oil pollution,” said Esler.

“Their diet consists of invertebrates that live in this area and have a limited ability to metabolize residual oil. Also, harlequin ducks have a life history strategy based on high survival rates, as well as a small body size when compared to other sea ducks.

“We found CYP1A levels were unequivocally higher in areas oiled by the Exxon Valdez spill than in nearby areas, a conclusion supported by multiple samples and two independent laboratories. We believe this shows harlequin ducks continued to be exposed to residual oil from the spill through at least 2009, twenty years after the event.

“We believe it is important to recognize that the duration of presence of residual oil and its associated effects are not limited to a few years after spills, but for some vulnerable species may occur over decades,” Esler added.

The study has been published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. (ANI)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/6969813.html

Houston Chronicle

By LISE OLSEN and TERRI LANGFORD
April 21, 2010, 9:44PMApril 21, 2010, 9:44PMNine major oil rig fires have killed at least two people and seriously injured 12 since 2006 in the Gulf of Mexico, a lonely, high-risk drilling area where workers stay for weeks at a time, working 12-hour-a-day shifts.

Those fires are among 509 recorded on oil platforms in the Gulf since 2006, according to the U.S. Mineral Management Services, which monitors and collects platform data.

The Chronicle did not find any fatal accidents involving the drilling rig that caught fire Tuesday night, the Deepwater Horizon, or the company that owns it, Transocean Ltd.

However, fire struck other Transocean rigs in 2008 and 2009 and four of 19 accidents recorded on Transocean platforms for the past four years resulted in injuries to workers that required evacuation to shore and caused $1.9 million in damage, according to MMS accident reports.

The Houston Chronicle counted 35 fatal Gulf of Mexico platform accidents since 2006, based on local news reports and records.

The two deadliest Gulf of Mexico fires occurred in 2008 and in January on two oil rig platforms operated by the Apache Corp. In those two cases, one man died of his burns, and another died jumping into the Gulf to escape the fire.

$8.5 million in fines

Fires on Transocean’s other rigs did not involve injuries, according to government reports. One 2008 fire began after an O-ring was improperly installed on a fuel line, causing fuel to leak onto a hot engine surface. Another in 2009 started because of electrical equipment failure.

Most of the fatalities on these hulking metal behemoths involved drowning, diving accidents, helicopter crashes or drilling equipment mishaps.

Drilling companies have been assessed at least $8.5 million in fines since 2005 by the MMS, which also wears another hat: The agency collects royalties from the leases it sells to oil companies it monitors for safety.

In 2009, $11 billion in royalties was collected from off-shore leases. According to the MMS website, those royalties are one of the federal government’s greatest sources of non-tax revenue.

Attorneys who often represent off-shore workers in injury cases said that accidents aboard Gulf of Mexico oil platforms tend to be underreported.

“There is a big difference between their actual incident/injury rate and their self-reported (rate),” said attorney Michael Doyle of Doyle Raizner in Houston, a firm that specializes in offshore injury cases.

Injury rate higher?

Despite federal reporting requirements, Doyle said companies have failed to report off-shore injuries to the U.S. Coast Guard, which shares some enforcement authority with the MMS, in about a third of the employee cases he has handled.

“Often (company officials) deny an injury no matter what the doctors say,” he said. “So the injury rate looks low, but is not.”

Federal court records show dozens of recent cases filed nationwide against Transocean Inc and interrelated companies. But many of the injuries and death cases result in undisclosed settlements, two other attorneys who recently represented workers in cases against Transocean said.

Kurt Arnold, who has represented several clients in recent cases against Transocean Offshore and specializes in maritime injury cases said most of the workers live together in small towns from East Texas to all across Louisiana.

“Unfortunately, the rise of incidents offshore are increasing as the exploration for oil and gas increases,” Arnold said. “Many companies talk about their safety record, but the majority of accidents are not reported or misclassified. Unlike on land, there is little oversight.”

terri.langford@chron.com

lise.olsen@chron.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575197613591134990.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

By GUY CHAZAN , RUSSELL GOLD And BEN CASSELMAN

Twelve people were missing and seven critically injured after an explosion and fire at an oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

View Full Image

AFP/Getty ImagesA Coast Guard rescue helicopter and crew document the fire aboard the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon, while searching for survivors.

 

The rig, about 41 miles off the Louisiana coast, is owned and operated by Transocean Ltd. and contracted to British oil major BP PLC. A spokesman for Transocean said most of the 126 people on board were safe. A Coast Guard spokeswoman said 12 were still missing but said reports indicated that all 126 people got off the rig. The rig was still burning and listing.

Four Coast Guard helicopters and an airplane are being used in rescue operations and five Coast Guard cutters are also responding, the Coast Guard said. “We are still in a search and rescue operation,” Transocean spokesman Greg Panagos said.

Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, has said that the missing people were in a lifeboat that drifted away from the rig while rescue workers were helping others.

It was unclear what caused the blast, which happened at around 10 p.m. Tuesday. Mr. Panagos said Transocean wouldn’t focus on determining the cause until the search and rescue concludes.

Fifteen workers were airlifted to local hospitals, according to Petty Officer 3rd Class Elizabeth Bordelon of the Coast Guard.

Ninety-nine people from the rig are on a vessel expected to arrive at Port Fourchon, La., at 8 p.m. CDT, the Coast Guard said. Transocean is bringing family members of the rig’s crew to Louisiana and is providing counseling, Mr. Panagos said.

“Anytime an incident like this happens, it’s a huge deal to us. We don’t want to see anybody hurt and we’ll do everything we can to take care of the crew,” Mr. Panagos said.

A spokesman for BP said the company had six personnel on board the rig at the time of the incident, and all were safe. The rig, the Deepwater Horizon, is located in an area known as the Mississippi Canyon.

Deepwater Horizon is a semisubmersible, effectively a floating platform that has small thrusters to hold it in place above a well. It was carrying out exploration drilling on BP’s Macondo prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. BP said Transocean was carrying out the work on BP’s behalf and was responsible for safety on the rig. Its staff on the facility work with Transocean’s drilling team to make sure the work is done to BP’s specifications.

BP, which owns the rights to produce oil and gas from the area, filed for a permit April 16 to temporarily abandon the well it was drilling at the site of the explosion, according to the Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department that oversees offshore drilling. It wasn’t clear from the service’s data if the government had approved the permit.

A BP spokesman says it had recently wrapped up exploration drilling. It is standard practice, the spokesman said, to file such a permit. The rig would then be moved to another location while BP spends time analyzing and interpreting data.

BP had begun to drill the well in June 2009, using a different Transocean rig. The Deepwater Horizon appears to have begun work in January, according to Minerals Management Service well data. The well had reached a depth of at least 11,500 feet.

Temporarily abandoning the well would typically require setting cement plugs in the wells to make sure that water, oil and natural gas don’t move around.

The deepwater Gulf of Mexico is a key focus of the western oil majors and a significant exploration hotspot. Last year, BP announced a “giant” discovery in the Gulf, saying its Tiber prospect, south of Louisiana, contained some three billion barrels of oil.

Associated PressThe ultra-deepwater semisubmersible rig Deepwater Horizon is shown operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Finds like Tiber have resurrected a region that was dismissed as the “Dead Sea” in the early 1990s after the majors drilled a string of dry holes.

With a fleet of 146 rigs, Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor. It has built up a big position in state-of-the-art rigs capable of operating in deep water and other technically challenging environments and has more than 21,000 employees world-wide. The company moved its domicile to Switzerland from the Cayman Islands in December 2008 for tax purposes and debuted on the Swiss stock exchange earlier this month.

Tuesday’s explosion isn’t the first major accident in the modern era of offshore drilling.

In 2001, a platform working off the coast of Brazil caught fire, killing 11 workers and sank five days later. The platform was a converting semisubmersible drilling rig.

According to an investigation by Petroleo Brasileiro SA, oil and natural gas was accidentally pumped into a storage tank, which led to excessive pressure in the tank and a rupture. Gas was dispersed inside the vessel and 17 minutes later, was ignited and exploded. The crew began to evacuate the facility about 1½ hours after the tank rupture.

About eight hours later, the facility was badly listing. Crews tried to inject nitrogen gas into its pontoons, but it sank five days later.

—Angel Gonzalez and James Herron contributed to this article.

Write to Guy Chazan at guy.chazan@wsj.com

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2010/04/eastern_gulf_of_mexico_is_cons.html
New Orleans Times-Picayune  By Kimberly Quillen, The Times-Picayune
April 18, 2010, 6:20AM 
Of the new territories that President Barack Obama proposes opening to offshore drilling, the eastern Gulf of Mexico is the best understood and promises to be the most fertile, the director of the Minerals Management Service said in New Orleans this week. It’s also a territory that, if opened up to energy exploration, could make an indelible mark on the south Louisiana economy.
“We know more about it than the other frontier (areas),” said Liz Birnbaum, who was in the area for a meeting of offshore inspectors hosted by the MMS, the federal agency charged with overseeing energy exploration. “The eastern Gulf is certainly the most reliable.”

Obama proposed late last month opening up territories along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. The proposal, which drew criticism from environmental groups, aims to reduce dependence on foreign oil and curry political support for a climate change bill.

For years, offshore oil and gas development has taken place in the central and western areas of the Gulf of Mexico. But energy development in the eastern part of the Gulf has been off limits because of long-standing opposition from Florida, where politicians and environmentalists have worried about the impact of offshore development.

Obama’s proposal would limit drilling in the eastern Gulf to projects taking place at least 125 miles off the coast of Florida and would be allowed only if Congress agrees to drop a moratorium that now blocks drilling in that area until 2022.

Even with the 125-mile limit, the proposal would open up two-thirds of the oil and gas resources in the eastern Gulf, where an estimated 3 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and as much as 12 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas lay, according to the MMS.

But since the eastern Gulf has long been off limits to energy exploration, it remains unclear exactly how energy-rich the area is.

“Much of the information (we have) is based on work done before the moratorium that was closer to shore,” said Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane Energy Institute. “We simply didn’t have the same tools (then) that we do now.”

Still, exploratory wells and seismic data on the eastern Gulf is more recent than data collected on the other new territories the Obama proposal would open up.

Because of the 125-mile limit, exploration in the eastern Gulf would take place primarily in deeper waters.

And south Louisiana is positioned to emerge as a base for serving eastern Gulf energy projects, a role it already serves for the central and western Gulf. Many of the supply vessels that support offshore platforms operate out of Port Fourchon, a sea port located on the southern tip of Lafourche Parish.

“It’s quite likely that (service for eastern Gulf projects) will come out of here,” said Birnbaum, noting that south Louisiana already has the infrastructure for bring oil and gas mined from the Gulf onshore.

“It would stand to reason that most of it would come out of Louisiana and Texas. That’s where the major service companies are located,” said Larry Wall, spokesman for the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, a group that represents the state’s energy industry. “It’s a crack in the door, but it’s definitely too soon to estimate any sort of financial impact.”
Smith said Mobile, Ala., also has offshore service capabilities that could serve the eastern Gulf.

Opening up of the eastern Gulf to energy exploration, assuming the moratorium is indeed lifted, could also renew interest in drilling in the Gulf as a whole, which has been perceived by some in recent years as an aging reservoir with its best days behind it.
“The idea that the Gulf of Mexico is tapped out is not consistent with our understanding,” Birnbaum said. “It’s a mature area. Some platforms have been abandoned. But as we move farther out, the companies are finding even more resources. The eastern Gulf is going to be another area for them to look at.”

 Kimberly Quillen can be reached at kquillen@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3416.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/18/2685021/the-conversation-is-it-time-to.html
Sacramento Bee
Opinion – California Forum – The Conversation
Sunday, April 18, 2010

A 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara caused 200,000 gallons of crude oil to spread over 800 square miles of ocean and shore.  VERNON MERRITT III / Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

The Conversation: Is it time to get beyond the Santa Barbara oil spill? No
Shorelines need protection from the ‘Drill, baby, drill’ ethos
By Richard Charter
Special to The Bee
Published: Sunday, Apr. 18, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1E
When President Barack Obama announced plans to open broad swaths of America’s waters to oil and gas drilling late last month, the Pacific Coast from California to Washington was left protected – for now. This was not a foregone conclusion, considering that some areas off California were proposed for new drilling just in the past few years. But it was the right decision for the Pacific Ocean.

America’s systems of national parks, forests and wildlife refuges, such as the national seashores and parklands that now embrace many of California’s beloved beaches and estuaries, are based on the principle that some places are best safeguarded for future generations. That means protecting them from damaging industrial development such as offshore oil drilling.

Since 1981, most of California’s coastal elected officials have backed a bipartisan congressional moratorium that set aside fragile coastal waters, and protected important fisheries and coastal-dependent economies from the effects of offshore drilling. But on Oct. 1, 2008, President George W. Bush, bowing to well-funded lobbying pressure from the oil industry and then Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s orchestrated chants of “Drill Baby Drill,” abandoned the offshore drilling moratorium supported by three consecutive presidents, and pushed Congress to do the same.

When Obama took office, he inherited a fast-track Bush drilling plan proposing three separate offshore lease sales extending up and down the length of the California coast. Areas from Arena Basin off of Mendocino County to the beaches of La Jolla and San Diego were to be offered up for drilling. So when Obama announced his decision March 31 to open up coastal drilling elsewhere around the country, the entire California shoreline and its $43 billion coastal economy breathed a sigh of relief. It had won a long-sought – though perhaps temporary – political reprieve from new federal offshore drilling leases until at least 2017.

But other areas were not so lucky. On the Atlantic Coast, tens of millions of acres of seabed starting only three miles off the shoreline, from Delaware down to Georgia, could now be opened to drilling. And on the white sand beaches of Florida’s Gulf Coast and Panhandle, the administration proposes to undermine a carefully negotiated 2006 bipartisan compromise to set aside a portion of the eastern Gulf of Mexico until at least 2022, to protect fisheries, critical military assets and environmentally sensitive coastal areas.

And last but not least, the administration has allowed drilling to proceed in the remote and fragile waters of America’s Arctic Ocean, where global climate change is already wreaking obvious environmental havoc, and where no effective cleanup technology has been invented to handle an oil spill amid the broken sea ice. Yet Shell has just been given the green light to start drilling there this summer.

Offshore drilling accidents and related oil spills happen with alarming frequency throughout the world, despite modern, “safe” drilling technology. Last fall, an out-of-control blowout from a “modern” offshore platform oiled more than 8,000 square miles of Australia’s lush Timor Sea for 10 weeks. And this month, at least 18,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a broken pipeline extending from an oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico through the Delta National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. So far, about 160 square miles have been oiled by the spill, including 40 square miles of protected marshes.

Here in California, we can enjoy Obama’s drilling reprieve until at least 2017, but we must be aware that the oil lobby still has its eye on our coast. In fact, the oil companies have already refocused their efforts on Sacramento and Santa Barbara. Three small local citizen groups in Santa Barbara County have recently admitted that they are working with the oil lobby to help facilitate the first new offshore leasing in 40 years within California’s near-shore state waters.
A drilling plan by Plains Exploration & Production Co. includes a proposal to “slant-drill” from an existing federal drilling rig back toward shore and underneath our protected state waters.
The dangerous precedent set by allowing at least 14 new wells to be punched into protected waters would gravely undermine four decades of bipartisan statewide protection provided by the California State Tidelands Oil and Gas Sanctuary. This state sanctuary, sheltering our waters between the Mexican and Oregon borders, is now the only legal protection our state retains from new drilling.

Fortunately, California’s State Lands Commission has already wisely rejected the proffered Plains Exploration deal. An attempt to circumvent the authority of the State Lands Commission also collapsed in the California Legislature. We cannot fall for an oil company’s flawed and flimsy assurances that drillers will eventually retreat from their profitable project and voluntarily remove portions of their spill-plagued infrastructure. To lose our coast in this way would be tragic after decades of hard work by elected officials and grass-roots activists from Santa Monica to Mendocino to Washington, D.C.

The obvious take-home message: When you win big, as the California coast has now done, it is time to stop gambling and leave the casino.
Richard Charter is a senior policy adviser for marine programs for Defenders of Wildlife. He has been working on offshore drilling issues with local and state elected officials and the conservation community more than 30 years.